Sean and Paige are where? Here's where you find out what's happening with them in India...

Welcome to India

This blog is intended to make a country that most Westerners find to be otherworldly not so much so. We enjoy sharing our experiences, noting our observations, highlighting our impressions and otherwise recounting our adventures in India while helping our blogwatchers to be vicariously closer to this grand country. Welcome to India.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

This is the hope, the goal that we have set prior
to coming home for good in 2016 (and remaining in lifetime support and advocacy
of CCH from afar).

Is your heart, group of friends/community, church
or organization getting a sense that orphan care is in your future?
Orphan care does not always mean bringing orphans home to the Western
world, in fact it means that less and less these days.

See below if sponsoring a home of our children on
your own or with a group of people you know is something intriguing for you.

Siddisimaduram boys get ready for dinner!

Check out the latest breakdown of our children's
homes and what our vision is for the next three years. We're so impressed
with our indigenous Indian staff and their work this year without us actually
being there.

545 children now? Amazing!

Perhaps you might consider joining with some
others (small group? church? business?) to help sponsor a home of
children?

S.N. Padu girls study hard into the night.

Sean hangs out with the Kolalpudi boys.

Vision: 1,000 fully
sponsored CCH children by the end of 2016.

(Currently 400 of our 545
children are sponsored in 70 different homes.)

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

For those of you who followed
Jaya’s first month, you know that her health and growth was a day-to-day
adventure in April. We reflect on April
with heavy-but-grateful hearts as we see how far Jaya has come since those
initial tenuous and uncertain days in the newborn ICU at UCLA. We now see the fruit of those days - how our daily updates helped bond so many people to our daughter even before meeting her.

We are so thrilled to
report that by virtually all measurements, Jaya’s health is improving and her
growth and development is stable and ongoing.

Some fun facts:

Age: 4 and-a-half months old already (March 31st)

Weight/Height: 9 lbs, 22.25 inches long

Feeding: 17.5 ounces-per-day, a majority of it through
the bottle (which is the preferred option to her attached “G-Tube” which
doesn’t help her motor skills)

Assistance: Weekly doctor or nutritionist,
physical and/or occupational therapy and monthly trips to UCLA for check-in
with the cardiologist

Surgery update: Anticipated second heart surgery
is expected in early November – doctors say this open heart surgery is “very
common” and are confident in Jaya, but for us as her parents this is not so
common…

States visited: 7 (CA, VA, MD, NJ, NY, PN, OH
layover)

Baseball games: 3 (Home team is 3-0)

Hugs and kisses received: 1, 439, 521 and counting...

Jaya’s social skills are
strong, her motor and feeding skills are getting there and the daily exercises
and therapy are helping so much. What a
pleasure to consider all that our little overcomer (the meaning of “Jaya”) has
been through and who she is becoming in the process.

More in love with her
every day, we love to share as many pics as possible, so here you go:

Thursday, August 8, 2013

We arrived home in
January, and we won’t be shy about saying it was a relief to be home from India for an
extended period of time. We were
anticipating approximately seven full months in the States prior to returning
to India for another three years on the ground.

And then came Jaya!

For most of April we were,
quite frankly, unsure if we would ever be able to leave California again, much
less the United States. When Jaya’s
cardiologist, assuming we wanted to return to India, indicated that January
would probably be “no problem” as far as her heart goes, we were wide-eyed that
our ongoing hopes and dreams for Covenant Children’s Homes might be able to
continue as soon as 2014, and with our daughter in tow.

A second heart
surgery. A recovery period. Home for the holidays. Then off to India in January.

So now what? It's only August. What about a whole year at home in the States
while still working on behalf of the children of India?

Honestly, so much of our
work in India comes with the sentiment “Boy, it would be very helpful to be
home right now” due to the importance of sharing our vision, building partners,
meeting with groups and organizations and speaking at churches and other gatherings. A good portion of our work is increasing the interest and awareness in these CCH kids and their future.

So while we are overseeing
and directing our operations from a long way away (and keeping Skype in
business on a nightly basis!), we are also building our partners for the
long-term, taking advantage of our temporary locale Stateside and doing all we
can in a similar workday to yours five days-per-week plus meetings and gatherings at many odd hours.

Burdened with a “self-employed”
type of work responsibility and approach, we carve out our days with the
combination of CCH communication and responsibilities, Jaya appointments and
needs, enjoying friends, family and our community as well as taking advantage
of what we view as our year of renewal in Santa Barbara.

Here are some pictures of
the last few weeks as we roll on in 2013, year three of our now six-year
commitment “in” India.

From the top of the famous Santa Barbara Courthouse.

With Uncle Todd and Brandon out from New York for a recent visit.

Fiesta Days in Santa Barbara - is she cute or what? Jaya looks good, too!

Monday, August 5, 2013

Jaya just celebrated her
4-month birthday this past week and her growth and development continue to
impress her parents, family, friends and, most importantly, doctors. A big recent step for her was beginning to
receive her entire regular feeding through the bottle rather than through the
“G-Tube” in her belly where we have been feeding her since the hospital.

Jaya measures in at 8 lbs.
12 ounces and 22 ½ inches long these days.

In June and July, Jaya
attended three baseball games including two Dodger games and one Nationals game
in Washington D.C. She’s learning all
about the intricacies of the game, like the art of holding runners on base and
the difference between a squeeze and a suicide squeeze. In fact, she probably knows more about
baseball now than her Mommy.

Jaya’s
record at these games? 3-0 for the home
team including an exciting walk-off home run for the Dodgers last week.

Sean & Paige Whiting

About Us

Southern California natives, we met in 2008 while both living abroad. We were married in 2009 and spent our first year in Santa Barbara, CA - the place we both consider our adopted home. After spending some time in the past in India working with India Christian Ministries, we decided to devote an extended period of time and now work with at-risk children in rural, developing areas of India's southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh. Welcome to our blog - we hope you find our adventures and observations interesting, enlightening, entertaining and inspiring.